Sunday, 9 April 2017

Open thread

19 comments:

During the opening BBC News brief before the Marr Show starts, Maddie Savage reporting from Stockholm said that the suspect in last week's murder came from a "diverse area" of the city. Sort of like the countries on the Trump travel ban are from countries with a "diverse population". The Sykes Rule is in effect a lot lately.

Forgot to mention that, as a demonstration of that 'diversity', the Beeboid reported that the suspect was Uzbekistani. I'm sure his vibrant neighbors include a Portuguese couple, a Belgian, a few of Australians, a Dutch homosexual couple, and a family of Mbele pygmies, right?

Heard on BBC World Service today. Think it was Jonny Diamond saying that "everyone" thought the Arab Spring would sweep away Assad. Everyone? Or does he mean the whole of the MSM and globalist political elite? Because I never thought Assad was going to be swept away and I certainly didn't want (and still don't want) the UK to line up with Assad's pro-Caliphate opponents.

He's not entirely wrong, though. A lot of people did think, early on, that there was some chance of a proper revolution in various places, which would spread once other people saw success. I admit to being one of those with some hope. It quickly went away, of course, but I was not part of a tiny, brain-dead metropolitan elite minority on that score.

There have been two examples recently 'across the BBC' of a lack of empathy with the Christian faith.

The first example was http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2fGs8wkM0Pz6Dqrs0QfCPQd/21st-century-nuns-4-things-you-wouldnt-expect

5 live presenter Emma Barnett visited Stanbrook Abbey in North Yorkshire. On more than one occasion, Emma would ask something like 'Steve from Bristol asks' ... followed by a sarcastic dig at a life of prayer: 'self-serving', 'a waste of a life', 'what happens if I wanted to leave the Order?' etc. This came across as a thinly veiled criticism of Monastic life - as being something that Emma and her BBC cronies simply could not comprehend, and therefore sought to denigrate.

The second example washttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-39153121

This appeared only briefly on the BBC News website on Sunday morning (Palm Sunday). There was an immediate sounding of alarm bells when we discover that ... ComRes surveyed 2,010 British adults by telephone, between 2 and 12 February 2017. The research was commissioned by BBC local radio for Palm Sunday... This 'local radio' tag is often used to obfuscate the origins and sources of the 'poll'. Most-likely the BBC has orchestrated the poll and directed the pollsters in a way to endorse their own prejudicial view.

I don’t have a problem with either of these articles. What I do have a problem with is the simple fact that Emma Barnett would not go into a mosque and conduct an interview in a similar manner. Nor would the BBC publish the results of a survey in which people were asked if they believed Mohamed ascended to heaven on a golden horse. We once lived in a free country where all religious beliefs could be openly questioned. This is no longer the case.

The 'Steve from Bristol asks' is a ploy by the BBC programme makers used so that they can ask their own 'challenging questions'. As we all know, it is the question that will be remembered in the programme de-brief - not the answer. The respondents (in this case the nuns) are little more than fodder needed to slake the BBC's thirst for dealing with controversial or uncomfortable subjects - as they would claim.

Radio 4 Today - about 8.35am. An unusually long piece about vaccination. Of course it was really an excuse for a bit of anti-Trumpism.

However...it was noteworthy as being one of the first instances I can recall recently of a BBC reporter admitting that some children do suffer serious negative health consequences, and many suffer more minor ill health incidents. Perhaps they realise they have to make this adjustment now since a Trump administration may well allow a more open debate on this. Previously it's always been a question of "vaccines are safe" - end of story.

I am not anti-vaccination but I am anti-pro-vaccination hysteria. As usual the report failed to identify salient issues:

1. Whilst all rational people may agree that mass vaccination has produced fantastic health benefits, is it enough to make historical references to say "hundreds of death" from measles? With current medical practice would those hundreds still die? I very much doubt it. Our ability to ensure patients survive acute illnesses has improved hugely. Also it is clear that those most likely to die from infections are those whose immune systems are already compromised by childhood cancers and associated chemotherapy. So there is an ethical dilemma about potentially risking the health of children with normal health status to protect children who are already seriously ill.

2. Wakefield was again brought up as a figure of fright. But the reality is that his contention about a link between vaccination, digestive disease and autism has been shown to be credible through recent research. A causal link has not been established but there are definite correlations. To treat him as a scientific pariah is absurd and amounts to fake news.

3. There remains a legitimate debate to be had about combining vaccinations in one shot.

4. There are plenty of well established cases of vaccinations causing serious health problems. The most recent has been Pandemrix flu vaccine, strongly linked with narcolepsy (so strongly that even the NHS admit the link on their website).

5. Many scientists thinks the immune system to be activated by childhood infections and that children brought up in highly "antiseptic" environments can go on to develop asthma and other diseases. Asthma kills huge numbers of children around the world. So any benefits of vaccination in relation to specific diseases need to weighed up against this possible downsides.

6. It is clear that Big Pharma have a huge financial interest in promoting vaccination. It is the perfect profit maker. But Government has a responsibility to act in the interest of the public at large.

Because of their unique position as a public service broadcaster the BBC have an automatic authority, justified or not, to decide what is mainstream. Therein lies the problem. If for example the groupthink at the BBC decides to take a stance against Israel or has a particular view on immigration, then those positions become mainstream - completely beyond criticism. Anyone outside of that “mainstream”, even within the BBC is seen as a kind of maverick. The simplistic analysis - almost a kind of excuse - is that all of this is down to a bunch of cozy middle-class lefties at the heart of the corporation. I really don’t buy into that at all. I think it’s much more fundamental that that and goes far beyond the BBC and into most of the educational establishment.

On the one hand you could argue that bias is inevitable so just scrap the license fee and then at least we would all know where we stand. Perhaps I am an idealist but I would still like to think there is a future for public service broadcasting. In fact if ever there was a time for an independent voice, speaking up for free speech it is now. But as Sue said in a previous piece, what can you do?

Terry, I'm afraid it's "newspeak" for the BBC to describe itself as a "public service" broadcaster. In what sense does it "serve" it's public? Not at all in my view. It serves itself. And can do this with impunity, having a 10 year charter for guaranteed income.

I'd go for making the license fee voluntary. Then we might see the BBC get interested in "serving" us.

As you suggest the BBC does not always serve the public. The only sensible definition I can find for Public Service Broadcasting is that it is independent of the government, funded by the public, not for profit and should serve the public. Clearly it is funded by the public. I would suggest that for the most part it is independent of government, sometimes it serves the public and sometimes it doesn’t. It is by its very nature a public service broadcaster, but a dysfunctional one. Making the licence fee voluntary is an attractive idea, but I don’t think it is a practical. Either you have a publicly funded BBC or you don’t. For a whole variety of reasons I would rather see a reformed BBC, but at the same time I realise that may be a vain hope.

Anonymous ... 1. and 2. would be good - increase democratic accountability and consumer power.3. and 4. I wouldn't jump at. Perhaps 1. and 2. would suffice without increasing bureaucracy -"independent panels" soon become subverted with cronies on lavish expenses whilst "some formula" and "average incomes" would also be manipulated.

I recommend everyone read this pathetic exchange between Charles Moore and Nick Robinson on the subject of BBC bias. Robinson's bias and intellectual dishonesty is on full display, and Moore is unfortunately no match for him.

Sorry, I just realized it's behind the paywall. They usually elevate popular features to the free Coffee House section by the weekend after publication. In the meantime, here's a taste of it:

Moore: The BBC is very, very old-fashioned, hidebound by the idea of seeking the opinion of a pressure group. It thinks that there has to be an authentic, official spokesman for everything. Of course pressure groups feed on that, very cleverly, to promote their agenda. Then we have the BBC’s specialist journalists, who will tend to have the producer’s interest rather than the consumer’s interest at heart, because that’s how they get their contacts. For example, Clive Coleman [BBC legal correspondent] is very biased in favour of the Supreme Court because they are judges. Roger Harrabin [BBC environment analyst] is biased in favour of everybody green because he is a green maniac.Robinson: I’d say that neither of them is biased! But look, Leave was, if you like, a popular uprising against lots of people in authority. If the BBC has had a problem over the decades, it is that we have tended to be a tad too unchallenging of conventional wisdom. But I do resent the suggestion there is a conspiracy at the BBC to do down a particular set of opinions. I hear such suggestions quite a lot. I could show you tweets and emails from people on all sides saying that I am anti-SNP, anti-Jeremy Corbyn, anti-Green, anti-Leavers. I get this every day. Now, I have worked in the commercial sector — in ITV — but if people had any idea of the vast amounts of time and energy we at the BBC put into how to get the balance right, I think they would be very surprised. Does that mean it is always right? God, no. I think your most powerful point is that the BBC needs constantly to say: are we even asking the right questions?

Moore: I do think that there are quite a few people in the BBC who are really desperate to keep us in the European Union. They sort of see it as their mission and adopt an ‘oh this is what civilisation’s all about’ sort of view.Robinson: All I can say is that I saw no evidence of that, nor do I think the coverage produced any evidence of that. If anything, the people who were angry with the BBC’s coverage of the referendum campaign were the Remainers. The people who were knocking on the director–general’s door were the Peter Mandelsons and the Chris Pattens and the Gus O’Donnells. They weren’t Iain Duncan Smith, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove or, indeed, Charles Moore.